Wednesday, November 14, 2007

fucking off

Sunday night, $10 dance night, dead as a stone. Economic downturns hit the luxury market first, and leave us naked girls -- pneumatic, Lycra-clad little luxury objects that we are -- sitting at the bar with our chins in our hands.

Late night it picks up a bit. I got on stage for the umpteenth time and there's a lady in a T-shirt at my tip-rail. Lady customers in titty-bars are a questionable quantity. They hate their husband for bringing them, and me for being there. Or they've got something to prove and prove it by slapping my ass and biting my nipples just as mean and rude as the nastiest male customer ever born. Yeah, I'm real iffy about wimmins in clubs. But shut my mouth, this chick is into me. She's got her chin tilted up and her eyes all big like the cutest little stripling boy who ever lived. She positively glows. I do my thing and she tips me, and then she goes back to the table she's sitting with and gets a bunch more dollars and tips me some more and then I get off main stage and go to one of the satellites and she follows me, tipping, tipping, tipping.

I get off stage and go over to her table. "Hello, future wife," I say. She's a sweet little elfin Hispanic lady, probably pushing forty, classy vibe. Probably a professional of some kind. Smart. Her name is Veronica. She buys a dance, and dancing for her is so freaking fun. I am concious that I am letting her get away with a little too much, especially right out here on the main floor in front of the main stage. But I love the way she handles me. Her hands are confident and strong. I want to bite her. I restrain myself.

I sit with her too long after the dances are over. We drink a drink. She talks so dirty to me, I'm swooning. Finally I drag myself up and away. I've got to make money. It's been slow all week. I'm behind. A youngish man flags me down. I start to sit on his lap, but he waves me into the chair next to him. "My girlfriend's in the bathroom but she's been waiting for you all night," he says. "She really likes you."

Well, cool. It's nice to be liked by women. It doesn't surprise me anymore when guys want to nail me, but when women do, it's shocking and flattering and intimidating like I'm a teenager all over again. His girlfriend comes back and she's stunning, with eyes like Angelina Jolie. I know celebrity comparisons are lame, but serious, that's exactly what they look like. She's got on this little cashmere sweater and talks in a clipped, polished voice that I used to think was affected, but now know is just the way people with money talk when they're shy. "I saw you playing with that other girl," she says. "I wanted to come over and join you."

I talk her into a couch dance, which we end up doing a couple of, and then she excuses herself and tell me to wait right there. She comes back with my first friend by the hand. "I thought we could share a dance," she says. Veronica is giggling. Hell, yeah.

So they molest me for a couple of songs, and I am overcome with the visuals of it. They are both so pretty. Unfortunately, I can't really feel it, the way I can't really feel 80% of what happens in the club. Even if someone is nice, even if they're good-looking, even if they smell just right, I'm still at work.

I'm thinking about whether the next song has started yet and worrying about whether you are going to pay me, and making sure that everbody stays that critical inch or two away from the pink that is all the difference between everything being OK and getting clobbered with a shoe in the dressing room for being an extras girl. I'll be jilling myself for weeks on the memory of this encounter, but I'm sad to say that at the time I might as well have been being wrapped in a quilt and lightly pelted with small bean-bags for all the sexual impact of the experience.

I seem to feels things less and less. Not just at work, but everywhere. It's as though my senses were dimming one by one, leaving me in a world of numbness and fog and muffled sounds. It's not too noticeable, unless I'm doing something that requires my full physical presence, like conducting business on the dayjob, or fucking my boyfriend. Then it is sad and frustrating to know that I'm not really there. The rest of the time I drift.

Sometimes I have to think to know what room I'm in, and who is there with me. Sometimes I can't beleive that I'm awake. I need my meds, adjusted probably, because this is stage one. Stage two is sleeping all day long. Stage three is horrible.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

I know the feelings (or lack there of) that you are describing. I would recommend doing something for yourself, even if just for a few minutes, every day or you risk slipping deeper and deeper into that hole of numbness. I hope you pull for an upward swing.

Dev said...

Careful. Take care.

Pause said...

Yeh I know stage two, I've sleep my occasional 36 hours straight taking sleep-aids to pass back out. Sometimes it is better then the alternative, an escape from the thoughts.

A good friend of mine dances. I am constantly amazed how well she holds the line when bills and lifes pressures get to her.

Anonymous said...

Grace,

Oh don't worry so much, its probably just the holidays are around the corner.

I have read the whole damn blog and let me tell you, you are no fucking crazier than anyone else on this earth and at least you can think about things.

You my dear girl are brilliant and witty and one hell of a writer. Going thru life as smart as you, well, it must be hard at times to be so different from the rest of us.

Take care my sister and all is well.

Pamela said...

I like what anonymous said. But I'm also worried for you. And actually for myself a little bit as well. It's a little different -- for me, I no longer feel anything when another village is destroyed by the army here, or when another fifty people are killed in Iraq or Afghanistan. I used to get really upset about this stuff, but lately I just want to sit quietly looking at trees and drinking coffee. I just want to be left alone. And I don't know how long it will last, or what it implies, or what to do about it, if anything. I am where I am to be happier, not to help anyone.

Romance is done for me, too, for some indeterminate amount of time. It's been too exhausting, too much of a waste of time, and people are too unreliable. Sometimes I'm not even sure what friends are for, either.

I can survive and exist relatively happily as just a bag of consciousness interacting with other fascinating creatures and beautiful places and delicious foods. And that will be fine. Biology and a brain. But lately I feel like there's nothing underneath it all. I mean, probably there isn't, but lately I feel it. I've been letting myself drift, chasing a phantom of warmth just for something to do, and now that that's failed, well... I guess it's just a question, as usual in times like these, of finding ways to build the floor back under myself. I find it helpful to exercise regularly, eat kind of absurdly healthily, spend time with friends, write a lot, and sleep on a regular schedule. Things tend to follow from there.

And I'm always here, for what that's worth.

Dev said...

You're familiar with yoga, aren't you? You could try the breathing techniques of yoga, called Pranayama.

Anonymous said...

Off to Egypt for a week. Wish you could join me and Patrick, you'd dig Dahab. How long's it been since you had a vacation, anyway? I mean, one where your insides didn't get half-strangled and ripped open?

Sucks about not being able to be fully in the moment at work, since it's work and all. (And sometimes even when I'm inflagrante, my mind gets anxious about this or that, and I can't manage to be fully in the moment -- that always sucks.) But how many people even have jobs where their challenge is not to get too carried away whilst being fondled by two hot women? I don't know if that'll ever happen to me (certainly not in this Burg) and I could use some of that about now...

I guess the grass is always greener, eh? Since F-man is unavailable, I'm currently chasing a yummy Argentinian Italian. Wish me luck.

Do what you gotta do to stay outta stage 2, k? My vibes are all pointed in your direction. All love.

Anonymous said...

Oh noes! Do something!

*hugs*

Anonymous said...

You are so smart and funny and I love you